BEHDINAN -The Press and Communication Center of the People’s Defense Forces (HPG-BIM) spoke to guerrilla Baran Nûjiyan in a three-part interview series for the new format “Şervanên Azadiyê”. Baran Nûjiyan has been part of the HPG in the mountains of Kurdistan since 2019. Born to a German mother and a Portuguese father, Baran Nûjiyan grew up in both countries, but mostly in West Germany. As a result, he had many contradictions as a child and found the injustices in the world to be extreme from an early age, he says. Looking back, he realizes that he asked many questions even as a child. But as he got older, the contradictions receded into the background. “They were always there somewhere. It was always a feeling of not quite belonging. A feeling of not wanting to accept the system as it is and life as it is,” says Baran Nûjiyan. A conscious search did not develop at that time, but the feeling of problems looking for a solution was always there.
“It was also the influence you grew up with,” says Baran Nûjiyan. The system has affected young people in all forms: whether consumer society or pop culture. There are many facets of dissuading people from the search for truth and solutions as early as childhood.
“There was always a feeling that was in the background. Only later, at the age of 24, working in the restaurant business, did this childhood feeling of injustice become stronger: the desire to seek a real life. At this point, I had a sudden feeling. It made me really reflect: What am I actually doing and what is the purpose of my life? At that time, I was working as a chef in star restaurants, and before that I was happy and determined about my job, but at that point I questioned everything as a whole. I asked: What is actually the result of my actions and my life? The work I do, what are the consequences of it, what values do I really create with it? This made me very quickly want changes and search for them intensively. And without having previously had great access to resistance movements, alternatives, perspectives, I simply embarked on a search.”
At first he had discussions in his environment and asked many questions, says Baran Nûjiyan. He looked for solutions in books and went to various political projects and campaigns. “I was looking for an exchange and very quickly realized that I’m not the only one with this feeling.”
The more intense this discussion became, the more he realized the scope and depth of it. “First of all, there were things that were in front of you, many isolated problems. But the system behind it, i.e. the big picture, only slowly came to the surface – the more I searched and did research. There were left-wing groups that I looked at here and there and sporadically took part in. Ecological connections, for example, where I learned a lot and saw a lot of willingness and interest to change something. The system as it is, capitalist modernity as it is mainly lived in Central Europe, is unacceptable and a change is needed. That was actually what these groups all had in common, that was their common denominator.”
Baran Nûjiyan talks about many practical things he tackled during this phase. Over time, however, it became apparent that there had only been limited success and equally limited results. “Most of the time I was in anarchist movements and that’s exactly what happened there.” In early 2018, Baran Nûjiyan got to know the Kurdish freedom movement. It was the time of the war against the occupation of Afrin by Turkey and the demonstrations at that time had aroused his interest. The first formative experience was the realization of differences in approach. “At the demonstrations of the Kurdish movement, you could see that it was just a cross-section of a society that’s out on the streets here. From the smallest children to people in their 80s, who take to the streets together for a cause to which they are fully committed and who do not shy away from immense police violence and do not let themselves be stopped. A very different connection to the fight. That caught my attention and made me try to find out more about it. Initially I was talking about the Revolution in Rojava.”
At first, that was exciting because in Germany everything is in a theoretical framework, says Baran Nûjiyan. There are many discussions about how the world would be right now and where appropriate paths can be taken. “But we were mostly far away from practice. We were also relatively far removed from society itself. In knowing ourselves, where is our stand? What is the system and what has it done to us? And how do we find an alternative? We were very superficial there.”
The first encounter with the Kurdish movement came through the Rojava revolution, explains Baran Nûjiyan. Initially, the approach was limited to theoretical aspects, through books. “What is the system that is being set up there like?” was one of the questions he was looking for answers to. In addition, the news from the region was followed. “During that time, we built up an anarchist group and it was always a topic that occupied me and I got involved in the work. It was a feeling of solidarity. But the more I learned, the more profound the subject became.”
At the end of 2018/beginning of 2019, Baran Nûjiyan took part in further campaigns and made initial contacts with the Kurdish movement. During that time, he also started to read the writings of Abdullah Öcalan. “And that made an incredible impression on me. I had read all sorts of theories beforehand, looking for solutions, but there was a certain randomness about it,” says Baran Nûjiyan.
He describes it as saying that the gap between theory and the reality in which one lives is too big to bring the two together. Getting into Öcalan’s philosophy, on the other hand, initially brought him to recognize himself as a person and his positions in this world. “What is my story? Where do I come from, where can I classify myself? As soon as the day is determined by capitalist modernity, one is ‘cut off and isolated’ from everything. Only what is current in life in Central Europe and what is current is of value, but who decides that? We don’t decide it ourselves. Those were the first steps that drew me in. Above all, to see the depth of this philosophy of freedom, the many lessons that were also drawn from previous struggles all over the world, from all experiences that were made in various revolutionary projects, currents and achievements in socialist struggles and reflecting the lessons from everything. Why hasn’t the revolution in Russia brought the results it initially promised? Why, perhaps even after a military victory, have so many battles failed to become a real alternative to the system? There is exactly a really deep analysis and to draw conclusions from it, to let these experiences flow into thinking and to take new steps, to open a new alternative that was what extremely convinced me at that point. And it was also a point where I decided relatively quickly to get closer to the movement and come to Kurdistan within a very short time.”
Baran Nûjiyan looks back on his arrival in the mountains of Kurdistan three years ago. But if he had known beforehand what life is like here, he wouldn’t have set out on his own. “One sits here and knows: We are taking steps here that are an answer to the question and the problems that thousands feel exposed to. Of course, one then has an interest in making it tangible and understandable. And of course it is also the case that we are far away from reality. This life is very far removed from life in the metropolises of Central Europe. It’s about, and that’s the approach; bringing about changes not only through gross changes in the power structures, but through the takeover of a state or the like. A social revolution is about letting people rediscover humanity. What have we lost in humanity in over 5,000 years of history? Where have values been lost? How do we find our way back to them, that is, to our naturalness? That’s what it’s all about.”
Of course he wants to share this happiness with others, Baran Nûjiyan continues. “In the mountains you meet every kind of nation and every kind of language is spoken. That confirms somewhere exactly what it’s about: the democratic nation, peaceful coexistence and the joint struggle for freedom of people from the most diverse backgrounds, who come together here and, in respect of differences, develop a common strength, the value of diverse views.”
Baran Nûjiyan reminds predecessors from different countries who joined the fight in the mountains of Kurdistan in the 1990s and left a legacy. Internationalist fighters, countless from Germany alone, who gave their lives in the resistance and opened the way. “That’s when we learn that it’s possible to join this fight. When I first heard about the revolution in Rojava and slowly got to know the movement, the first question and consideration was: Where can I find my role and can I find a role at all? Can I just be a spectator from afar? This is what was made possible largely through the work of friends who left before me. To know that we can go, we can be part of this, we can play a role.”
Great examples have been set. People like Andrea Wolf (Ronahî), Michael Panser (Bager Nûjiyan), Jakob Riemer (Şiyar Gabar), Sarah Handelmann (Sara Dorşîn), who fell in the mountains, and others who lost their lives in the war for Rojava and opened a new way for us. “This also shows one’s own responsibility to continue this fight and to continue the work that the friends started,” says Baran Nûjiyan.
This with the general handling as a basis to lead a common fight. “It’s not about becoming a system for the search for individual satisfaction or individual happiness. It is about a common goal and about becoming part of the common struggle as an individual. And to become one.” He feels an obligation towards the fallen. “They gave meaning to the struggle with their lives and our job is to continue that. There are also countless friends that we take as an example, with their characters and the marks they have left everywhere. You always take an example from them. You want to do justice to this fight.”
